Actually it was a good reaction from Stern - if he hadn't done anything San Antonio would be #4 right now instead of #2. The problem was that he didn't do ENOUGH - he needs to fix it so that playoff seeding is based on regular season record. AND FURTHER he needs to say that there are no more conference seedings - all in teh same boat!
It was better than nothing, but I wish he invited the 3 division winners to the playoffs (Regardless of record). Then invite the 5 next-best teams. Seed them #1 - #8 by record only, decide tie-break in case of tie, and there's your 8 team field. The old way was terrible. Right now, it would be: 1) New Orleans 2) Lakers 3) Jazz 4) Spurs 5) Rockets 6) Suns 7) Mavericks 8) Warriors That would suck for a first round matchup when you have the second (Spurs) and third (Rockets) best records in the West. Furthermore the winner has to play New Orleans in the second round. This would guarantee that only 1 of the top 3 records in the West would survive the second round. David Stern needs to move away from being so tied to division winners. Give them automatic entry to the Playoffs, but if they're a terrible team, treat them like a small college school in March Madness and give them a low seed.
I wish he invited the top 16 teams in the NBA by record only. Seed them by record only. That would give the current first round matchups: Boston v Toronto Detroit v Portland New Orleans v Washington San Antonio v Cleveland Houston v Denver LA Lakers v Golden State Phoenix v Orlando Utah v Dallas I thought it was stupid way back when Francis' Rockets missed the playoffs with 47 wins, and I still think it's stupid today when the (let's say) Nuggets will miss the playoffs with 50 wins. And teams with losing records go to the post season... Let's run the game like a proper sport eh Stern!
Why damn we are 5th? I mean Lakers have actually worse record than we have. They are 49-24 and we are 49-23. So that means we should be 3rd, shouldn't we?
Division leaders (Lakers & Jazz) can not be worse than 4th place. The Jazz are 4th and the Lakers have a better record so they are 3rd. But we have a better record than both of them. This crazy race has made the seedings look silly for a long time. Don't worry about the standings right now, everything is so close that they are subject to change at a moments notice.
Isn't anyone worried that the Rockets don't have a big post-up player like Boozer? Or is everyone just figuring that Scola/Landry can get enough points to match what Boozer will get? I think that was a big problem for us in the playoffs against the Jazz last year, even though we had Yao. And my question actually applies to every round in the playoffs.
Suppose to play? Every one of the 'national' cognoscenti think Rox should be losing like Lakes of late. As for seeding, 1 - 7 is all but the same -- except for draft seeding. BTW - don't Rox have tie-breaker v Lakers? BTW II - #5 seed v #4 Utah = home court (as of today, at least)
Yao was a bad matchup against Boozer. Boozer killed Yao. This year we have Scolandry. I feel much better in matching up with Boozer this time. But the Jazz will always be a tough matchup. They will wear us out. So I'm not sure I want them first either. But I think we can do a better job against Boozer this time.
Ok sorry. I just forgot Lakers are division leaders. BTW, this rule is so dumb. Utah should be fightimg for playoffs and now they have a lot easier task because of the 1st place in division. I don't care about division, right now I don't care bout standings cause everything is changing from day to day. We went down to 5th spot and we didn't even play...
The game on sunday is an important win for us. But then again, 5th seed is not bad either to play against utah in playoffs.
Lakers currently have a 49-24 record... And ours is 49-23. Could anyone tell me why they are 3rd, and we are fifth, not the opposite?
Interesting, but the majority opinion on the Utah boards is that drawing the Rockets in the first round would be ideal for them.... We'll see... I kinda hope we get to avoid the Jazz...
